Israel says Hamas will pay "full price" for handing over remains of Gazan woman instead of hostage Shiri Bibas

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to make Hamas pay "the full price" for what he called a "cruel and wicked violation" of the tenuous Gaza ceasefire agreement after the Israeli and U.S.-designated terrorist group returned the remains of a Gazan woman instead of an Israeli mother taken hostage with her two young children.

Israeli officials said late Thursday evening that Hamas had handed over the body of an unidentified Gazan woman earlier in the day instead of the remains of Shiri Bibas as expected. In a handover orchestrated under the ceasefire deal that came into effect on Jan. 19, Hamas was supposed to return the bodies on Thursday of Bibas along with her two slain sons, Ariel, 4, and Kfir, who at just nine months old was the youngest of the 251 Israelis seized during the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attack.

The children's remains were returned, along with the body of Oded Lifshitz, who was 83, but Netanyahu said that instead of Shiri Bibas' remains, Hamas "put the body of a Gazan woman in a coffin."